The Stork has been working overtime at SUNY Cobleskill, with the delivery of quintuplet meat goat kids on March 12. The litter of kids weighed a total of 27.3 pounds and includes two doe kids, weighing 3.1 and 4.1 pounds, and three buck kids, a bit more hefty, weighing in at 5.1, 6.9, and 8.1 pounds. The solid white doe, a Kiko-sired crossbred, and her litter of kids, all born unassisted, have been affectionately named Snow White and the Five Dwarfs. [Read more…]

Cornell Cooperative Extension recently presented a poultry marketing meeting, which addressed whether pastured poultry producers may best be served through some form of cooperative system: for marketing; processing; purchasing inputs; or even frozen product storage space.

CCE of St. Lawrence County has obtained a grant, from the Northeast Center for Risk Management Education, to study the production of chicken in hoop houses, in an effort to scale-up poultry production in Northern New York State. Betsy Hodge, CCE Livestock Educator, is involved with the project, along with extension agent Brent Buchanan. [Read more…]

Anyone involved with food production has likely heard about the proposed Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the most comprehensive makeover of the nation’s food safety laws. With numerous listening sessions in the books and the comment period for the livestock feed rule drawing to a close, numerous questions remain unanswered. [Read more…]

Are you a Massachusetts farmer that wants to sell your product to a school and don’t know how to do it? Are you a Massachusetts school food service provider and want to know how to connect to a local farmer to provide your wares? All it takes is a phone call to the Amherst-based Massachusetts Farm to School Project to connect you to each other.

For the past three weeks, Michael DeChiara, resident of Shutesbury, MA, has been immersing himself in his new role as the project’s new executive director, overseeing their vital connection as intermediary since Dec. 2. [Read more…]

by Melody Reynolds As every animal farmer knows, manure can pile up quick. The daily cleaning of the barns and pastures of animal waste can become a problem if a plan is not put in place. We have a dairy goat farm in Rhode Island. Here we make goat cheese and goat milk soaps to […]